On Tuesday Apple provided developers and beta testers with the GM build of OS X Yosemite, which will likely be the version that ships to consumers later in October (although since this is only a “GM candidate” we may see another build sometime before then). Earlier we noted that this build includes updated videos to demonstrate the trackpad gestures in System Preferences that showed off new iWork icons.

As it turns out, those demo videos also give us a quick look at what will almost certainly be the next major version of Apple’s iWork suite. Above you can see an unreleased version of Pages that features a redesigned toolbar and other tweaks. Another of the videos has our first look at the updated Keynote app:

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Unfortunately, in the case of Keynote, we can’t see nearly as much, even at the largest available size, because it only appears as a thumbnail in Mission Control. However, a close examination reveals that it has a very similar toolbar to the one seen in the Pages screenshot above. These Yosemite-ready updates will likely be available some time next month, probably at or just after Yosemite becomes publicly available.

I don’t think people know what they want. Pages is far and way more pleasing to the eyes than any other word processor out there. For someone to nickpick the buttons (which by the way are white so the icons don’t blend with the background coming through the window) is pretty entitled behavior.

I want to like iWork, but without grammar checking and a citation manager it is rough to use for graduate classes (Pages), with the 65k row limit I can’t do a nice sort/remove duplicates quickly (Numbers), and without something to help build quick diagrams like “Smart Art” (Keynote) I have a rough time using it for work reasons. Don’t get me wrong, I HATE using Office to attempt to build something pretty, but until I can easily clear those hurdles I can’t use iWork for my daily life.

Speaking as somebody who works on an interface where there are no buttons, only text links to move on to the next page/leave a note, I think the point of the rectangles is to provide a larger clicking area. The white is probably just because it matches the background of the thumbnail strip on the left.

I agree about the white squares around the icons. They do not add to the invisibility of the design, they simply highlight things that should not be highlighted. Very strange choice indeed, especially across Yosemite in general. I assumed before the public announcement of Yosemite that Apple would have adopted the look and feel of iOS icons, without a strange white box around each of them. SO, needles to say, I’m not a fan of them :-(

I know that a lot of people dislike the ribbon menu in MS Office, but I actually think it’s one of Microsoft’s better interface innovations. I used to love pages and keynote, but the improvements in MS Office 2013 combined with the feature stripping of Pages & Keynote have left me preferring MS Office. That said, the Mac version of Office is still painful to use.

I think I’m onto a design trick Apple introduced with Mavericks. Because I see the same trick Yosemite and now I smell a rat in Cupertino. Okay, before I even discuss it, an analogy.

Suppose you’re Toyota. And insecure about your flagship line of cars. Well, in a photo of your best designed cars, include the world’s ugliest Toyota. Why? Your eye is drawn to it and it makes everything else look better. You with me here?

Okay, Mavericks. The dock background is hideous. It makes it hard to see the apps. Thankfully someone named God offered up cdock and finally you can make the dock background disappear. Try it: you’ll like it.

In Yosemite? That new Apple smiley face is awful. An embarrassment. I know these are all opinions but I tell you most of the world’s better graphic designers could easily improve it. So how can it possibly be there?